


Straume & Sons: Paranormal Investigation - Done Fast, Done Right

by attheborder



Category: Lost
Genre: Aaron has 2 moms and infinite dads, Epistolary, Everybody hunts ghosts together, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Harvard University, Los Angeles, Post-Finale, cameos from other characters but shhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 19:29:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17987246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: Aaron Littleton grows up, surrounded by a loving family.That family just so happens to be made up of employees of Los Angeles’ most successful paranormal investigation business.





	Straume & Sons: Paranormal Investigation - Done Fast, Done Right

**September 17, 2021**

 

 **Name:** Aaron J. Littleton  
**DOB:** 11/1/04  
**Nationality:** US/Australia Dual Citizen

 **High School:** Crossroads School, Santa Monica CA, USA  
**GPA:** 3.83  
**AP Classes:** AP Psychology (4), AP Environmental Science (5), AP Calculus BC (4), AP World History (5), AP Chemistry (5)

 

**Common App: Harvard University**

  
Supplemental Essays

 

> _Your intellectual life may extend beyond the academic requirements of your particular school. Please use the space below to list additional intellectual activities that you have not mentioned or detailed elsewhere in your application. These could include, but are not limited to, supervised or self-directed projects not done as school work, training experiences, online courses not run by your school, or summer academic or research programs not described elsewhere. (150 words)_

 

My freshman year of high school, I took a two-semester after-school research position with my AP World History teacher and helped him prepare for a symposium presentation on the possibility of Egyptian migration to Polynesia in 2500 B.C., which won him an award.

Sophomore year I shadowed doctors in the NICU ward of the UCLA Hospital and recorded my experiences in essay form for extra credit in my Health Sciences class.

Junior year I was involved in a youth activism program focused on grassroots criminal justice reform with an emphasis on domestic violence legislation. We presented our proposals and findings to the California State Senate in Sacramento.

I’ve also spent the last five summers (since I was 12) assisting my family’s business, and this year I’ve taken on more responsibility as a part-time outreach and development officer.

 

 

> _Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (150 words)_

 

My family’s business is called Straume & Sons. If you’ve ever been to LA, you may have seen the big billboard on La Cienega or the advertisements airing late at night on public access TV. Maybe you were in a layover at LAX and you started getting weird targeted ads to your Twitter feed. More likely, you’ve seen the viral Reddit posts with pictures of our photocopied flyers pasted up on telephone poles around the city, with the caption usually something like “Is this real?” or “Has anyone actually ever hired these guys?” or maybe even “Is this some kind of marketing campaign?” That one’s my favorite. But no, we’re a real company, and we’ve been operating out of the same dingy office on Montana for eleven years, an office that I more or less grew up in.

 

 

> _You may wish to include an additional essay if you feel that the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about yourself or your accomplishments. You may write on a topic of your choice, or you may choose from one of the following topics:_
> 
> _(1) Unusual circumstances in your life_

 

150 words wasn’t nearly enough for that last question. If it’s OK with you, I think I’ll keep talking about my family business— which, in and of itself, _is_ the most unusual circumstance in my life.

Straume & Sons was founded in 2009, formalizing and expanding on a business endeavor that was previously pursued solo for some years by one Miles Straume. I call him Uncle Miles. Spoiler alert, he’s not really my uncle. In fact, most of the people in my family aren’t related to me by blood.

You probably remember, over a decade ago, the media hullabaloo over the return of the Oceanic 6, including a mother and her young infant. That infant was me.

You may _not_ remember, if at all, the scantly reported return of two additional survivors of the original crash of Flight 815 three years later, alongside four others. On that flight was Kate Austen, the woman the media knew to be my mother, making her second trip back. Also on that flight was Claire Littleton, the woman who gave birth to me, who had been stranded on a tropical island since the initial crash.

Miles was there too, and James “Sawyer” Ford, the other survivor of the initial crash to return. Uncle Frank was flying the plane, and of course Uncle Richard was on board as well. More on them later.

When Claire returned after three years and was reunited with me, nearly four years old, I didn’t recognize her. And that wasn’t just a child’s goldfish memory at work. She was, objectively, unrecognizable. To me, Kate was my mother, and Claire— her hair matted and her nails ragged, her irrational anger often uncontrollable— was the monster under the bed, come to take me away from Mommy.

It was Kate and Sawyer who looked after me together while Claire received the mental health treatment she so badly needed, and my earliest memories as a child start right around this period. Kate and Sawyer taking me to see Claire, at the institution, and then at the group home. We’d take her out to the rose gardens at the museum where Miles was working, and she would hold my hand as Kate and James walked behind us, watching us with trusting eyes. I finally began to call her “Mama,” and the blue eyes that matched mine would swim with tears.

By the time I was five, Claire had her own room in our beachside apartment, right next to mine. Kate and Sawyer shared the third bedroom, the one that looked out over the Pacific. I’d sit on their bed and Kate — still “Mommy” to me — would point out at the ocean and tell me, “That’s where you were born. Across the sea.”

 

***

 

Miles was bored at the museum, cataloging specimens in the dark basement. He had thought it would be the perfect job, following in his scientist father’s footsteps and setting himself on the long-avoided path to respectability. But though his abilities made him a valuable asset to the museum, he found himself missing his old career.

One day, unexpectedly, he was offered a promotion to curator. Talking it over that night with Sawyer at their favorite Venice dive bar, Miles was torn.

“How much are they offerin'?” said Sawyer, his Southern drawl made stronger, as always, by booze.

“A hundred k, plus health, month’s vacation, bonuses,” said Miles, more distraught at the idea of money than Sawyer thought he had any right to be.

“Sheee-it,” Sawyer said, draining the rest of his whiskey. “So less than you would’ve gotten for your troubles from Widmore, but more than you ever made doing that woo-woo crap for grannies in San Pedro, I’d figure.” He set the glass down on the bar and looked up at Miles. “What’s stopping you?”

“It might surprise you to learn,” Miles said slowly, “that I happened to really enjoy that woo-woo crap.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Enos,” Sawyer said, “but I think _enjoy_ might be the wrong word. I’ve seen the look on your face when you… do what you do. Ain’t looking like anything I’d call having fun.”

“Okay, I know what you mean,” Miles said defensively. “But it’s true. I miss it. I miss helping people— being right there with them, listening, talking, not... writing up curation strategies in a back office.”

“So you’re not gonna take the gig?”

Miles shook his head wordlessly. “Haven’t decided,” he said. “The money’s good, but I just….”

Sawyer waved the bartender over to refill both of their glasses as Miles trailed off. He took a sip of his, thinking.

“Seems to me,” he said, “that your services would be in high demand on the open market. Generally speaking.”

“Sure,” Miles said, not sure where Sawyer was headed with this.

Sawyer continued. “But before we met, from what I’ve heard, you were runnin’ around like a drug dealer. Cash only, wearing a hoodie, burner phone, beater car.”

“I didn’t exactly want to draw attention to myself—”

“Maybe so, but nothin’ you were doing was illegal. You weren’t scamming or conning like I was. You were creepin’ around because you were ashamed.”

“Oh, are you a _therapist_ now, James?” Miles said.

“Shuddup, I’m not done. Anyway. You were livin’ your life like you’d done something wrong, and didn’t wanna be found out. I get it, believe me. But the way I see it, if the museum life’s not for you, it’d be easy work to spin your woo-woo crap into a woo-woo company and start raking it in.”

“So you’re saying I should go legit.”

“You, kemosabe?” Sawyer said. “More like _we.”_

“But you’re not—”

“Doesn’t matter I can’t do the damn ears in the dirt trick,” said Sawyer. “I’ve got a keen eye, a photographic memory, and I can talk anyone into anything. I’d be an asset and you know it. We can be partners. Real partners.”

Miles nursed his drink for a moment or two. “Hold on,” he said. “To start a company, I’m pretty sure you need money. Capital. You missed out on the 815 settlement, and if you’re actually willing to ask Kate for a piece of hers, I’ll eat my shorts.”

“I think you’re forgetting someone,” said Sawyer, wagging a finger.

It took Miles a second, but he got there. “ _Richard?_ You think he’d—”

“I happen to know for a fact,” said Sawyer, “that our boy Guyliner, A, has access to stacks and stacks of Linus cash, and B, is currently wasting it all on dealing with his midlife crisis.”

“ _Mid_ life, haha,” Miles scoffed. “I don’t know if that works out, mathematically.”

“You know what I mean. The man just bought a Porsche, for god’s sake.”

“And he needs… a more productive outlet for his monetary contemplation of his own mortality.”

“Exactly.”

Miles furrowed his brow. “And that outlet should be my pay-me-to-talk-to-dead-people business?”

“Genghis, you’re thinking too small,” Sawyer said. “Enough with the psychic shit. That’s child’s play. And you ain’t no child.” He spread his hands as though framing a name in lights. “How about this: _Straume & Sons: Paranormal Investigations. Done fast — done right.” _

“...Uhhh, who are the sons?”

“Doesn’t matter. Sure you’ll have a few someday. But— sounds good, right?”

“Yeah, man,” said Miles. “Sounds real good.”

And thus my family’s company was brought to life. I, of course, was not there to witness it, but the tale took on a mythic nature as the company grew, and so it was involuntarily committed to my memory.

 

***

 

Sawyer had been right about Richard’s willingness to act as investor. By the time I started kindergarten that fall, the shabby storefront office in a strip mall on Montana had been rented, with the green Porsche parked sheepishly out front next to the unmarked white van that served as the business’ official transport. Small ads began to appear in the classified sections of local papers:

 **STRAUME & SONS  
** **Paranormal Investigation: Done Fast, Done Right  
** **“Don’t Get Spooked — Call The Experts”  
** **310 - 555 - 1523**

Richard Alpert made a visit to the ATC tower at Burbank Airport to see the pilot Frank Lapidus, who since his miraculous return of Ajira 316 had been relegated to office duty. The union couldn’t fire him, legally speaking, as he _had_ brought the plane back, but they obviously didn’t trust him in the skies anymore, and he’d had a restriction placed on his license. At this stage in the business, Richard couldn’t offer Frank much more than he was currently making, but if he wasn’t going to be able to fly planes, then maybe driving a van full of his friends the Ghostbusters was the next best thing.

To pick up the slack of the initial soft-launch period, Miles drew on his contacts from the days before his Pacific adventures, the type of people who lingered around the hurting and the harmed and could pass along word of the new venture. Soon enough he had bookings blocked out a month in advance, and he could only hope they’d be successful enough to start leaning on word-of-mouth. Despite Sawyer’s convincing attitudes towards advertisement, Miles still felt uncomfortable putting himself— and his skills— out there in such a public manner.

Meanwhile, Claire was walking me to school each morning, dropping me off, and then making her way to the office, where she sat at the reception desk and took calls, carefully taking down the names and addresses of the curious but hopeful potential clients. In the afternoons Kate would come pick me up and walk with me back to the office, and I’d snuggle up with Claire on the ratty olive sofa in the back. She’d read from picture books and sing to me until the office closed for the day. Then Sawyer would pull down the metal shutters over the facade and lock up, and we’d all pile into his old Volvo for the trip back to our oceanside home.

Straume & Sons’ early bookings held little allure. From what I’ve been told, and the snatches of conversation and visitation that I can remember from those days, there were a lot of gangsters wanting to know where their dead partners buried the money and squabbling half-siblings desperate to find out what their father had _really_ meant to put in his will. These were the clients left over from Miles’ early solo days, when his singly offered service had been to simply speak and interpret for the dead.

It was when the “investigation” part of the tagline began to attract a new kind of clientele that things got interesting.

 

***

 

The very first of these new, exciting cases came midway through the company’s first year. The summer sun was baking Los Angeles and the AC unit in the office was on its last legs the day Claire picked up the phone and heard, on the other end, a soft voice.

“Please, you’ve got to help us,” said a girl with a faint Indian accent. “There’s something… happening in our dorm.”

Claire dutifully took notes on the location and reported characteristics of the ongoing issue, and told the girl that the team would be there as soon as they could to investigate.

“You’re going to be okay,” Claire said to the girl.

The next morning, Sawyer, Kate, and Miles were in the van heading east on the 10 to USC, where inhabitants of the sixth floor of an on-campus dorm were being taunted and tortured by an unseen presence. Frank, of course, was at the wheel, and Claire was home with me while Richard worked in the office.  

Arriving on campus, they were met by a slim, glasses-wearing student. Priya, the girl who had called them, had found their number on Craigslist.

“My roommate made fun of me for calling you,” said Priya, “so I really hope you can help. It’s been going on for a month now, and everyone on my floor is so scared.”

They entered the lobby of the dorm and Miles sat with Priya, asking her questions while Kate and Sawyer examined the building.

“This place sure is fancy,” Sawyer said, running a hand along a long scarlet couch and gazing up at the message board advertising the beginning of lacrosse season.

Kate smirked. “What, are you starting to wish you went to college?”

“Hell no!” said Sawyer. “Look at me, Freckles. I’d have flunked out in days.”

“I don’t know,” teased Kate. “I can see it. Fraternity boy Ford, kegstands and football.”

Miles interrupted their banter with a polite cough. “Okay, guys,” he said, his manner professional. “It’s 10 AM. Priya here says the disturbances usually begin around this time. We’re going to stake out the floor to see if we can catch it in action.”

The elevator was out of commission, so they headed up a set of cinderblock stairs to the sixth floor, and emerged onto a landing furnished like the lobby downstairs, couches and bulletin boards surrounding the elevator doors. Priya picked at her nails in anxiety. “Everyone’s in class right now, that’s why nobody’s here,” she offered as explanation for the dorm’s relative stillness. “And I’m skipping,” she added guiltily.

They didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later, there was an electric crackle, and then a horrible sound like metal on metal echoing from down the hall. Kate was first around the corner to witness a chair being dragged by an invisible force towards her, clanging against the doorframes lining the walls.

Sawyer pushed Priya and Kate out of the way as the chair swept violently past them, its legs twisting and warping before their eyes. It hit the wall at the back of the floor’s foyer and stopped, twitching for a few seconds like a dying animal before falling still again.

“OK, what the fuck,” said Miles.

“See?” said Priya. “Girls have started sleeping on other floors. The staff won’t do anything, they don’t believe us.”

“They don’t believe you after seein’ _that?”_ Sawyer said.

“That’s the thing, they’ve never seen it,” said Priya. “It only happens around students, never staff. Just this floor. They think we’re insane. Like, PMSing.”

Kate said, “This is an all-girls floor?”

Priya nodded. “The floors alternate, you know, boys, then girls, then boys.”

“Sawyer,” said Miles, “Priya here said she didn’t know about any fatal incidents on this floor—”

“But I’ve only been here a few months,” Priya piped up.

Miles continued, “Without a name or story I can’t get in touch. Can you do a sweep of the building, and some of the offices across the way— talk to some people. Adults, janitors, you know. Don’t draw too much attention to yourself.”

“On it, Boss.”

“I’m going to stay and watch for more activity, try to get something from the floors, the walls... Kate, take Priya and see if any of the boys on the fifth and seventh floors have heard or seen anything.”  

“Okay. Just a sec, Priya, I'm going to check out this floor first.”

Kate wandered down the hall, examining the closed doors and keeping an eye out for more flying chairs. She noticed the plaster in between the doors was scored and scratched, as though a huge beast had been clawing at it.

Sawyer slipped back down the echoing staircase at the corner of the building and emerged onto a manicured lawn. He wandered around for a few minutes, eyes darting between students lazing about on hammocks and professorial types seated at picnic tables, searching for a suitable interrogation target.

Finally he glimpsed a grizzled groundskeeper doing the rounds with a leafblower.

“Hey. ‘Scuse me, sir,” Sawyer said, his mind already crafting a narrative in real-time. The man turned off the leafblower as Sawyer approached. “I’m with Straume & Sons... _Private_ Investigation. You worked here long?”

“Twenty years,” said the man proudly.

“Great,” said Sawyer. “Now, we’re a discreet company. So I trust you not to report that you spoke to me, and I’ll do the same. But we’re doing research for a lawsuit that’s set to be served to this university—”

“Is this more about Jenna?” the groundskeeper said. “You know, these poor administrators have been through enough. The police said it was suicide, everyone agrees. What’s a lawsuit gonna do? It’s not gonna bring her back!”

Sawyer adapted quickly to this new information. “You knew her well, then?” he asked.

The groundskeeper shrugged. “She was nice to me. Nicer than most students. I’m invisible to them, most of the time, but not to her. She’d bring me coffee. But I could tell she was troubled. Nobody did it to her, nobody needs to be sued. She was just lonely.”

“I see,” said Sawyer. “Thanks so much, mister.” That was all the information he needed. And easy to get, too. Damn, he should’ve been a cop.

Back up the stairs now to the sixth floor, Sawyer was thinking his new information was all Miles would need to get in touch with this girl— Jenna— and help her move things along and stop torturing the floor’s residents.

 

On the seventh floor, Priya had introduced Kate to Joshua and Himesh, who shared the room directly above hers.

“We’ve heard the noises,” Joshua confirmed, “but we thought it was just the girls messing around.”

“You know, rebelling,” said Himesh. “This is the scholarship dorm. Lot of repression…. No offense,” he added to Priya, who scowled at him.

“Any urban legends you know of, about this place?” Kate asked. “Deaths in the building?”

The boys looked at each other and then back to her like she was crazy. Joshua said, “The university wouldn’t let anything like that spread amongst the students, they take their reputation crazy seriously. So I doubt we’d know if there was.”

“Yeah,” agreed Himesh. “I mean, the most legendary thing on this floor is how apparently Andy Lee is a virgin…” He trailed off, meeting Kate’s skeptical eyes. “No offense.”

“Andy’s an engineering major,” added Joshua unhelpfully. Kate deemed this conversation over and guided Priya back to the stairs.

“So many engineers in our building, you’d think one of them would figure out how to fix the elevator,” Priya muttered.

“It’s been broken long?” Kate asked as they descended.

“Since the beginning of the semester!” said Priya. “Ridiculous.”

Coming up from the ground floor they met Sawyer, and all three landed back on the sixth floor foyer together. Miles had his ear up against the closed elevator doors and was squinting in concentration.

“It’s broken,” sighed Priya.

“I know,” said Miles. “But I think there’s something inside…”

“Chief, I got it,” said Sawyer, interrupting Miles’ communion. “The girl’s name was Jenna. She died in this building two years ago. Suicide, I was told, but who knows—”

Miles held a hand up to shush Sawyer, and closed his eyes again. “Jenna…”

“See?” Kate whispered to Priya. “He’s taking care of it.”

But Miles was shaking his head now. “She died here,” he said, “but she’s moved on. It was what she wanted. She didn’t have regrets. She’s gone. Whatever this is, it isn’t her.”

Sawyer threw up his hands. “Why do I bother! Damn red herring.”

Miles was pacing in front of the elevator now. “Priya, do you remember any of the disturbances happening when the elevator was still working?”

After a moment, Priya shook her head. “You know, I don’t think so…. I think... yes, this all started around the time it broke down.”

“Okay. If we can get the doors open, I might be able to communicate with whatever’s in there. Sawyer, Kate, give me a hand.” Miles strode over to where the metal chair lay like a dead spider and wrenched a leg off. Sawyer and Kate followed suit, grabbing impromptu crowbars off the body of the chair as well.

Priya crouched behind a vending machine and watched as the three of them wedged the metal bars into the gap in the elevator doors.

“OK, team. On the count of three,” said Sawyer. “One, two, THREE—”

They heaved with all their might, levering the doors wide open. There was a soft, sinister _whoosh_ as air seemed to rush in to the dark cavity of the elevator, no light seeming to penetrate inside— and then all the lights on the floor flickered and went out.

A moment of terrifying silence— that same electric crackle heard before the chair incident emanated from inside the elevator, and then suddenly all the furniture in the foyer was sent flying. As Sawyer ducked to avoid a toppling bulletin board, Kate was jerked towards the eerie darkness of the elevator shaft as though an invisible bully were yanking her arm.

“Kate!” Sawyer yelped, grabbing her other arm. He could tell that whatever was on the other side of her was strong.

“What the hell is this, Medium?” Sawyer said, straining to keep Kate away.

“It’s like it’s got claws in me,” Kate groaned. Her heels were slipping involuntarily back towards the lip of the elevator’s mouth. Sawyer could see long scratch marks being dug into the back of her arm by something unseen.

Miles had stepped back instinctively from the elevator’s archway when the doors opened but was now stepping forward, slowly, curiously.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like… a manifestation… Not of something dead, but—”

“A manifestation that’s got its hands on my girl! Are you just gonna stand there? C’mon!”

“I— ah— alright—” Miles stammered and let his eyes fall shut, and stretched his hands out into the darkness. Papers flew around his head and furniture clattered around him as he concentrated.

“It wants her... It wants the _women_ … it’s obsessed with this floor, with the girls… Pent up, dark id, clogging up the building— hiding in the elevator, in the machinery—”

“Can you make it _stop?”_ snapped Kate, straining against the inexorable pull of the force inside the elevator.

“I think I— I need to—” Miles instinctively turned around, opened his eyes to see Priya still cowering behind the vending machine.

“Priya! Come here, now,” he said. Sensing she was hesitating, he added: “If you come over here, it’ll help Kate get free.”

At this, Priya was at Miles’ side, and he took her hand. “There’s a boy on the floor above you,” Miles said slowly, as though translating in real time from some unheard, unknown language. “He’s making this all happen. This is his pain, here. He needs your help.”

“...Andy?” Priya murmured, realizing.

“Reach your hand in,” Miles said.

“In there?!” Priya blanched at the suggestion. The inside of the elevator was a million different shades of deep blue and scarlet, roiling like a sea in a storm.

“I know you can do it. You need to show him you won’t hurt him. And you need to prove to him he won’t hurt you. Because I know he won’t.”

Priya was shaking visibly as she stretched out a hand into the darkness, her other hand still held tightly by Miles.

“Andy, stop this, please,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. Sawyer watched, still gripping Kate and trying to pull her back from the edge, as Priya closed her eyes like Miles and groped around inside the elevator’s abyss.

“Look at me,” she said. “None of us will hurt you. You don’t need to throw chairs around, scare us to death. You can come downstairs to our floor whenever you want. It’s me, Priya— I promise, I—” She trailed off with a choke of panic, tendrils of blue and red crawling up out of the elevator onto her upper arm, and she was about to let out a scream when suddenly, the movement in the room ceased.

The energy inside the elevator swirled and contorted and then collapsed into a marble-like sphere, floating in Priya’s palm. She closed her hand; the marble popped like a bubble and dissipated into the air.

Let go, Kate was flung forward with the inertia of Sawyer’s weight and they both fell backwards. She landed on top of him in a position that could be described as “compromising” but for them was more than natural, prompting a grin from Sawyer and a quiet laugh from Kate, meant just for him.

Helping Kate up with a gentle hand on the small of her back, Sawyer saw Priya stumble backwards into Miles, who took her by the shoulders and guided her to sit on top of a toppled armchair.

“You did good, Bollywood,” said Sawyer. Priya smiled weakly back at him, her glasses askew.

As Miles was checking her over to make sure she was OK physically, she asked: “So everything that’s been happening, it was Andy?”

“I have no idea _how_ ,” responded Miles, “but yeah. His… frustration was leaking down from the seventh floor. Taking it out on the girls he couldn’t have.”

“He’s not even _ugly_ or anything,” murmured Priya, half to herself.

“OK, so I’m gonna need you to go _tell him that_ ,” said Miles. “This could all happen again if he doesn’t get his, uh, feelings in order.”

Priya stood up, steadier on her feet than could reasonably be expected after an experience like that. “I’ll do it,” she said. “Thank you so much, Mr. Straume. And to you too.” She nodded at Kate and Sawyer.

“What do I owe you for your services?” she asked Miles.

He shook his head. “We can settle up later. I’ll give you a call. For now, go up there and help your friend. He’s probably just as shaken up as you are. I doubt he realized what he was doing.”  

Priya offered a handshake, and Miles took it, and then she walked down the hall to the stairs, picking her way around the papers and chairs strewn around the landing.

“Well, look who’s the therapist now, Venkman,” said Sawyer, clapping a hand onto a mildly stunned Miles’ back.

 

***

 

The incident in the dorm set the stage for the type of cases that Straume & Sons were to be taking on in ever larger numbers in the coming years.

There was the case in Malibu where a jewelry store kept losing customers because the diamonds would scream at them in the night. Miles put to peace the spirits present by de-activating the cursed opal that was disrupting the energy fields of all the other stones, and Sawyer helpfully disposed of it by grinding it under his boot heel.

And there was the one out in East LA where Richard was dragged along in the van to help translate from Spanish, and the night ended after Miles had helped mediate the feuding spirits of Alta California rancheros with birria tacos for all.

But for every case that Miles was able to resolve with his spiritual talents, there was another that Sawyer and Kate discovered through old-fashioned detective work to have fully mundane origins. Sawyer liked to call these his “Scoobies,” from the scorned housekeeper disrupting the lives of her wealthy former employers by hacking their sound system and posing as a ghost, to the spirit of a deceased loyal customer haunting a specialty wine store that turned out to be the customer himself— who had faked his death for insurance purposes, but couldn’t be without his precious Syrah.

Claire’s specialty was the family cases. The mother whose pain over the loss of her daughter to cancer was starting fires in her home— Claire was there at her side, speaking so kindly that in the end Miles barely had to lift a finger to dissipate the negative energy present in the house. The two identical boys whose third triplet brother had died at birth and was beginning to poison them from the inside was spoken to directly by Miles, sure, but the words and the comfort were Claire’s and Claire’s alone.

And as the years went on and the company began to gain reputation for its work, the cases grew more and more perilous. This wasn’t just Miles placing his hands on the ground in exchange for a stack of cash anymore.

I overheard Sawyer deep in discussion with Richard and Miles in the office, one smoggy evening when I was working on my fifth-grade homework (math worksheets) at the desk they’d set up for me in the corner.

“Some of this stuff, man,” Miles was saying, “it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen… on the mainland, you know.”

Sawyer was nodding in agreement. “I swear,” he said, “sometimes I expect to turn a corner and see good ol’ Smokey.”

“Well— funny you say that, James. I’ve been working on a theory,” said Richard, pulling out a thick binder full of incident reports and case files.

“Oh, really? Let’s hear it, Professor,” said Sawyer.

“Well, from what we know, the Heart was only disabled for a few hours at most. Enough to inflict some geological damage on the outer fringes of the Island, but not enough to have any lasting influence there or anywhere else— so we thought.”

“What are you getting at, dude?” Miles said.

“Look at these electromagnetic signatures you’ve picked up at our case sites.” Richard pointed to graphs laid out in his binder. “And compare them to the readings I had Walt send over from the DHARMA archive— historical data from conflicts at the barrier.”

“Wow,” said Miles. He drew a finger between two opposing graphs. “They’re almost identical.”

Richard nodded. “So here’s what I think— the few hours that the Heart was disabled was just long enough to let something… out.”

Sawyer leaned back in his chair, a half-grin of incredulity spreading across his face. “What, and it hitched a ride on our plane?”

“...Yes. I think. Maybe. I’m not sure about that yet.”

“Son of a bitch,” said Sawyer, “looks like you struck gold, Ringo.”

“This makes... way too much sense,” Miles said. “The type of manifestations we’re dealing with are being fueled by some kind of— remnant, or product, of the few hours the Heart was offline.”

“Right. And,” said Richard, having waited to save the best for last, “I’ve plotted out the frequency and location of our more _severe_ cases.” He flipped to a page in the binder that displayed a map of the area, speckled with dots of different colors and sizes. “This is just an educated guess, but it seems like it’s only been our activities that have prevented a wider epidemic of disruption. _We’re_ the only thing keeping it all at bay.”

Miles put his head in his hands. “Shit, this is way too much responsibility,” he moaned, then perked up. “Do you think this means we can raise our rates?”  

***

 

I was only peripherally aware at first of the danger and adventure that my family faced every day as they piled into the company van. I knew my family wasn’t like other families, like the families of my friends from school— they might have had a single mother, to be sure, but one who probably wasn’t supported and loved and employed by a motley crew of a psychic, a pilot, two former criminals and a recovering immortal. But as time went on and I began to not only understand but pay attention to the goings-on at the office, I came to understand just how unique my situation was.

When I was six, I asked Claire who my real father was. “It’s not Sawyer,” I pointed out, “because he’s married to Kate and you’re not married to him and you have to be married to have a baby. And it’s not Richard because we have different color hair. And it’s not Miles because he’s Asian.”

Claire must have suppressed her laughter before speaking to me seriously and gently: “First of all, Aaron, Sawyer and Kate aren’t married. And you don’t have to be married to have a baby! I’ve never been married, and you’re _my_ baby.”

“Oh,” I said. “So it _is_ Sawyer?”

Now Claire couldn’t help but laugh. “No,” she said. “Not exactly. No. Look, if you really want to know who your dad is, I’ll tell you his name, and when you’re older you can look him up and maybe even call him on the phone. When I was a little girl, my mum didn’t tell me the truth about my father and I wished that she had.”

“Really? You’ll tell me?” I asked.

Claire nodded. “I will. If you ask. I promise. But, Aaron, I swear, he’s not important. I haven’t seen him since before you were born. The most important thing about him was that he helped me make _you._ ”

I must have contemplated this for a while, looking overly serious as I often did as a child, because soon Claire had swept me into her arms.

“You’ve got a _family._ A big one. And they all love you. Call them your uncles, dads or whatever you’d like. But Sawyer, Miles, Richard, Frank— they’re gonna teach you so much. And you’re going to grow up the smartest, nicest, bravest boy ever.”

And she was right— well, about the teaching, at the very least. (I’ll refrain from making claims regarding my own personal attributes in this kind of essay.) My childhood was flush with role models. From Richard’s long-winded and obtuse history lessons to Sawyer’s lectures on classic literature, my already-quality education was supplemented by a deeper learning, given freely and joyously by those around me.

But despite this bounty of love and connection, I still felt there to be something missing in my life— and it wasn’t a father. See, the older I got, the more jealous I became of my family traveling off to do and see amazing things together while I stayed behind, usually with one or the other of them watching me, or my grandmother on one of the occasions she came to visit from Australia. They could put me in all the after-school programs and summer camps they wanted, buy me the newest video games and gadgets, enroll me in soccer and baseball and all the rest, but nothing could shake the envy stoked by hearing the stories they told back at the office after a long day’s ghost-hunting.

It was October of 2016, less than a month away from my 12th birthday, when I begged my family to let me come with them. Of course, I’d been begging every year, but I’d recently learned how to write a persuasive essay in middle school English and thought that, thanks to my newfound skills, that this might be the year I finally got to tag along.

To Claire, Sawyer, and Kate, in the living room of our apartment, I gave an extensive presentation, PowerPoint included, on why I thought I should be allowed to work for Straume & Sons. It included slides such as “4. There Aren’t Any Sons And I Could Be One Of The Sons, So The Name Makes Sense” and “8. I Can Fit Into Small Spaces To Find Smaller Ghosts” and lastly, “16. There Might Be New Monsters On Phones And The Internet, Which You Don’t Know About As Well As Me Because You’re Old.”  

After I had finished, and resisted the urge to run away to my bedroom in a fit of embarrassment, Sawyer began to clap, and soon Kate and Claire had joined in the applause as well, beaming.

“Well, Freckles,” Sawyer said to Kate, “I don’t see how we can argue with the kid.”

“Aaron, that was great. I really liked the slide about you helping me answer the phone,” Claire said, beckoning me over to the couch for a hug. I sat in her lap, wondering if I’d finally made the grade.

“We’ll have to run it by Miles, of course,” said Kate to me, “but... I think you’ve got us convinced.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes, honey, really. Welcome to the team,” said Kate.

So it was decided. I, Aaron “AJ” Littleton, was to be officially inducted as a member of the team at Straume & Sons. Of course, my outings would be limited to afternoons and weekends otherwise free of academic obligations, but it was a start.

The next case, my first ever, took us deep into Laurel Canyon. An abandoned house loomed up out of the February mist, draped in ivy and overgrown with brambles. We entered, and my heart raced at the thought of meeting whatever might be lurking inside.

I’ll save you the anecdote, as I’m aware this application is running a little bit long, and reveal that it turned out to be a feral cat colony infesting the attic, and not the lingering spirit of the former owner as the neighbors believed. A good old Scooby. I didn’t see my first manifestation until a few weeks later, when at an after-school run to a construction site in Century City I witnessed the spirit of a worker killed on the job animating piles of rebar.

My outings were as educational as any other moment I spent with my family. From Miles I learned techniques for spiritual contact and communication, ones that could be taught even to those without his gifts. From Sawyer and Kate I learned the skills for interrogation and exploration that would serve well in any investigation, paranormal or no. Richard taught me how to balance the books; Frank, of course, taught me how to drive. And Claire was there always, guiding me through these new experiences, letting me be as curious, as cautious, as scared or as excited as I needed to be.

Once I entered high school, my academic & extracurricular loads made evening outings increasingly irresponsible for me, so it was decided that I’d spend summers full-timing with the company instead of trying to balance it with my education.

This began to mean that as the school year approached finals in June, I’d become more and more antsy to begin my Straume & Sons summer. I knew that as the Santa Monica pavement started to cook in the heat I was close to returning to my favorite places— my corner desk at the office on Montana, my seat in the back of the van, and of course every new and scary site of a haunting, manifestation, apparition, _thing_ that was to be fixed or freed by us.

I dreaded the end of my last company summer more than I ever had, and it didn’t go unnoticed. My uncharacteristic reticence to return to school for my senior year was caught one day in mid-August by Kate, who in turn brought it up to Miles. We settled on a compromise: as long as I was able to secure extra credit, I could trade in varsity basketball for afternoons at the office and weekends in the field.

As outreach and development officer for Straume & Sons, I’m in charge of the marketing and growth of the company. So far, this has meant buying a Creative Cloud subscription to modernize our public presence (perhaps putting the 180-year-old man in charge of graphic design hadn’t been the smartest choice) and upgrading our appointments system from a paper calendar to GSuite.

I’m thinking about taking bigger steps, as well— maybe a new office, one without mildew on the windows or a constantly overflowing toilet. Or a new van, one with working air conditioning. I’ve been analyzing the cash flow of the business and I can see that while we’re definitely in the black, we could definitely use an injection of funds. My friend from Korea might be coming to visit soon with her grandparents, and they’re big names in business over there, so I’m working on a pitch deck to present to them. Ji Yeon is even helping me translate it into Korean. I guess I never really grew out of my PowerPoint stage.

 

***

 

My experience being a part of my family’s business has shaped me into the person I am today. At Harvard, I hope to dual major in business and history, gaining both the skills to grow and promote a business, and the knowledge to put any work I may do in service of that business in context of the greater universe at large.

And lastly, I’m well aware your esteemed institution has plenty of straight white males amongst the student body. But I do hope you will consider making me the first professional ghost hunter to enroll as an undergraduate.

 

  
_________

 

_From: Dr. Benjamin Linus <linusb@teachers.xrds.org>  
_ _To: Aaron Littleton <littletonaj@students.xrds.org_

_Subject: Re: Harvard Application - 1st Draft_

 

_AJ,_

_This is a wonderful essay. As I’ve told you many times before, you are a brilliant writer._

_The tone is fluent and fervent, the tales told at an engaging pace. There are some places where the dialogue could be tuned up a bit, perhaps to lessen the melodrama._

_I do feel an obligation to present one specific edit: I have an instinct you may be best off modifying your second-to-last paragraph to suggest that you’d be seeking to enter Harvard as an English major. You can always switch later, but I feel this essay may be better received as a piece of pseudo-fictional creative writing than as the true story we both know it to be._

_Best,_

_Dr. Linus_

 

_P.S. See you at dinner Sunday._

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I finished my LOST rewatch and immediately started thinking about the strange collection of people on that final Ajira flight: Miles and Frank (from the freighter), Kate, Sawyer, and Claire (from Oceanic), and Richard (old as fuck). 
> 
> What would they even get up to when they got back to Los Angeles? The answer seemed immediately obvious: they would start a ghost hunting business. So I wrote about it. 
> 
> Also I'd just like to point out that the babies canonically born during the series are literally TEENAGERS NOW, so the time is ripe for LOST: THE NEXT GENERATION to go into development. C'mon!!!


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